Jump to Recipe This update to my “Ceci Polenta” recipe is now a casserole with melted cheese and caramelized onions and it’s super easy to make ahead. So yeah, that’s going to automatically make it one of my favorites. Also, having a delicious vegetarian gluten free Italian recipe in my arsenal is not a bad thing…

If I was going to list my family’s top 10 favorite dishes, I think I could confidently say this would make the top five. It’s the most common dish on the menus I found when I reviewed my family’s Italian Birthday Feasts, and that doesn’t even include our non-Italian birthday menus, which still often manage to…

This garbanzo polenta is an easy, healthy dish you can put together ahead of time and broil quickly to have hot to serve with dinner. Corn, of course, was not a native grain in Italy, so this is technically a more authentic recipe anyway. I find the flavor of using chickpea flour more savory and satisfying than corn polenta, though both are delicious.

No one in my family is the least bit Italian, but it seems this has become a traditional birthday feast choice around here. I didn’t realize how much so until I started writing this out. Italy, like India and many other countries with drastic climate differences and a very long history, has a wide variety…

Rice, of course, is a primary staple in many areas of the world. It’s cheap, it’s healthy, and it’s easy to start cooking (especially with a $20 rice cooker from Target). Last winter I woke up one morning and decided to catalog my rice. In this post, I’ll go over some tips and tricks about different types of rice I’ve learned to appreciate in my exploration of different cuisines.

Risotto requires a bit of patience, something I’m usually in short supply of on a Monday night. But a last week – when I first said I’d be “restarting this blog” – I came home on a cold dark evening to find no one would be home for a while. I was hungry and felt…

Gnocchi uses very simple ingredients to create something that tastes sublime. Store-bought frozen gnocchi simply can’t compare – but the warnings on the recipes I’d read made me think it must be hard to make. I didn’t find that to be the case when I actually tried it, though you do have to be willing to get your hands a bit messy.